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Sixtyplusurfers Competition

Win a Mosaic Craft Kit from House of Crafts

Win a Mosaic Craft Kit from House of Crafts

Sixtyplusurfers has teamed up with House of Crafts to offer three lucky readers the chance to win a Mosaic Craft Kit to help you create beautiful gifts for your family and friends.

For thousands of years craftsmen have used mosaics for all manner of designs. This superb kit introduces crystaline mosaics - transparent coloured tiles for a magnificent stained glass effect. A glass votive and trinket box are included in the set for you to decorate.

The set includes a candle glass, clear trinket box, crystaline mosaic pieces in two sizes, powdered grout, tweezers, a glue pen, and a glue/grout spreader.

Full instructions are in English, French and Italian. Recommended retail price is £13.98.

The Mosaic Kit from House of Crafts is available from Hobbycraft, John Lewis, CDS Superstores, and all good craft and hobby shops.

To take a look at the complete range of craft kits from House of Crafts just click on www.houseofcrafts.co.uk

For Your Chance to Win

Tell us what type of mosaics are included in the Mosaic Craft Kit?

  a) Mirror Mosaics
  b) Marble Mosaics
  c) Crystaline Mosaics

  d) Byzantine Mosaics

  
To Enter the Competition

Just tell us what type of mosaics are included in the Mosaic Craft Kit? Then send in your answer, together with your full name, postal address and telephone number by clicking on the Sixtyplusurfers link below: sixtyplusurfers@hotmail.co.uk

* This competition is open to our UK visitors only
 

Decorate a Table

How to Make a Mosaic Table Top

Make a Mosaic Table Top

Add a little colour to a plain table by putting some mosaic pieces on the top. Use small pieces of tile, pretty plates, stones, shells or other materials to create a unique table top that will last forever and friends will admire and enjoy.

You Will Need

·  Sturdy table
·  Tile grout and sealant
·  Tile adhesive
·  Broken pieces of plate, tiles, shells, pottery, stones or mosaic pieces

How to Make the Table Top

1.  Choose a style and colour scheme to match your room or shape of table. Plan a picture or patterns depending on the mosaic pieces or materials you will be using.

2. Select and cut a piece of cardboard to match the size of your table. Lay your pieces on the cardboard, working from the middle and moving towards the edges. The design should feel similar to a puzzle. However, the pieces should not touch. A piece can be as close as 1/4 inch to another.

3. Step back and examine your design. You can also place the cardboard on your table and lay your pieces there to get a better view of how the table will look when it is finished. Look for glaring errors of colour or design, or areas that don't seem to flow. Make sure the design and colours are even. You don't want a lot of colour on just one side of the table.

4. Lift the cardboard with the pieces still intact off the table. Spread the tile adhesive on the table and begin to transfer your design from the cardboard to the table.

5. Apply grout to the table, smoothing it between the pieces of the mosaic. Make sure you extend the grout to the very edge of the table. White grout is very striking, but harder to keep clean. Black grout will give you a more formal look, but some of the mosaic pieces may not show up as well, depending on the colour. When finished, wipe the extra grout off with a damp cloth.

Make a mosaic table top

Tips and warnings

* Be sure to let the grout cure before enjoying your new tabletop.

* Try drawing your design on graph paper before looking for mosaic materials.

* Mosaics can be heavy, so make sure your table has sturdy legs.

* Charity and junk shops can be a great place to find pretty plates for breaking up into pieces for your table. They are also ideal for finding your table to decorate.
 

Holiday Crafts

Decorated Frame

Decorated photograph frame

Transform your holiday photos with this eyecatching picture frame. This project has been created by HobbyCraft

You Will Need

·  Square clip frame
·  Square photo mount to fit frame
·  Shells
·  Starfish
·  String
·  Cool melt gun
·  Scissors

How to Make the Photo Frame

1.  Place a photo mount and picture of your choice in the clip frame.

2. Make a coil with string and stick it to a corner of the frame with a glue gun.

3. Arrange the string in a wavy pattern along the bottom of the frame, sticking it in place as you go.

4. At the next corner, make another string coil and stick down.

5. Carry on in this way until you have met the first coil you made.

6. Using the glue gun, stick shells randomly onto the coils and waves of the string.

7. Stick a starfish in one corner of the frame.

* Handy tip - collect shells and decorations for your frame while you are on holiday.

For information about Hobbycraft projects visit the website at
www.hobbycraft.co.uk

 

 Send us Your Summer Photos!

Send us your Summer photos

Are you a keen photographer? Have you taken an amazing picture of your pet, grandchildren, wild animals or your holidays?

Then send in your photos to the Photo Gallery on the Sixtyplusurfers Chat & Socialise page. We'd love to see them.

Send in your photos to the Sixtyplusurfers Chat & Socialise page

Click here to see some of the photos in our Gallery. They've all been taken by readers.

If you haven't visited the Chat & Socialise page for a while - then don't forget to come back again and tell us all your news. Everyone is always very friendly.

And if you don't have a digital camera, we have a message board where you can chat to other readers, a place to put up your own blogs, or  join one of our groups and find out about other readers' hobbies and interests. Enjoy!
 

Crafts & Hobbies

See Sheridan Morley's Theatre Collection at Kingston University

Ruth Leon in the Sheridan Morley archive
Ruth Leon in the Sheridan Morley archive

 

His address book was a Who’s Who of the film and theatre world - with Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Marlene Dietrich and Noel Coward among the many household names who were his personal friends. During his lifetime, author, critic and broadcaster Sheridan Morley amassed a library of books, personal letters, cards, and memorabilia from showbiz royalty – enough to fill 90 crates. Now one of the most important private theatre and film collections of the 20th century will be made available to the public by Kingston University, thanks to a donation by his widow, author, critic and broadcaster Ruth Leon.
 

Born in Ascot, Berkshire, Morley spent part of his childhood in Hollywood and grew up immersed in the world of theatre before going up to Oxford. The Redgrave children were great friends and Joanna Lumley a distant cousin. In addition to writing more than 30 books, Morley worked as a critic for many national newspapers, presented radio and television shows – including Radio 4’s Kaleidoscope and the Radio 2 Arts Programme – and appeared on game shows such as Call My Bluff and Countdown.  First Noel Coward and then Gielgud chose him to write their revealing authorised biographies and, with his wife, he also wrote books about Marilyn Monroe, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland amongst many others.


After her husband died in 2007, Ruth decided the library needed a new home, and felt strongly that the collection should be kept together and available to everyone. She began discussions with top UK and US institutions including Juilliard and Yale, but settled on Kingston after being shown around by Sir Peter Hall, the Chancellor.

 

“Everyone from actors to school children used to come to our house to use the library. If you wanted a book and couldn’t find it in your library you went to Ruth and Sheridan’s because the chances were we had the book, some pretty good coffee and the chance of having a good gossip too. When I decided to donate the library to a university I didn’t want it to be hidden away but to be used, just as it was in our house.”

 

Kingston seemed like the ideal place. “Sheridan would have liked the liveliness, the fact it’s a new university and that people come here from all over the world, so the knowledge they gain is spread far and wide,” Ruth added.

 

Sheridan Morley in his library
Sheridan Morley in his library
 

Known as The Sheridan Morley Theatre Collection, the archive will be housed in the University’s Learning Resources Centre at the Penrhyn Road campus. Students, academics and members of the public will be able to access more than 4,000 books on theatre, film and performance, many signed by actors or authors – including Ginger Rogers. Hundreds of letters from the theatre and writing world including Laurence Olivier, Richard Attenborough, Daphne Du Maurier, Melvyn Bragg, Iris Murdoch, Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Britton will also be housed in the collection. Other items of interest include scrapbooks, magazines and theatre programmes. 

 

Among the many highlights giving an insight into the behind-the-scenes world of stage and screen are gossipy letters from Gielgud, often commenting on his fellow actors’ talents – or rather, their lack of them. There are many letters from Sheridan’s father, actor Robert Morley, including one written while he was working with Alfred Hitchcock, whom he describes as “a highly nervous, umbrage-taking neurotic, who picks an opponent at the outset ... and keeps firing at him wildly”. Marlene Dietrich wrote to thank Morley for a review, adding, “I had photostats made and sent them to all the intelligent people I know.”
 

Other fascinating items of memorabilia include a programme for a charity fete for the Actors’ Orphanage Fund showing Vivien Leigh on the cigarette stand, Maurice Chevalier selling ice cream and Laurence Olivier running the game of chance, and a school report which states the 13-year-old Morley could “earn his living by writing”. There is also a scale model of a stage set of a 1997 production of Noel and Gertie, a play devised by Morley as a tribute to Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence.
 

Professor Gail Cunningham, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University, described the collection as one of the most important theatre and film archives in private hands. “It adds insight into the lives of virtually every significant theatrical figure of the twentieth century and is a superb resource that will benefit researchers everywhere, from international experts to students and the general public,” Professor Cunningham said. “We are thrilled and privileged to have this wonderful collection at Kingston University.”

 

A set model included in the collection
A set model included in the collection
 

The Sheridan Morley Theatre Collection will be officially launched with a VIP reception on July 6. It will available free of charge for everyone to visit from July 7 onwards.

 

The archives will be open on a drop-in basis on Tuesday July 7, Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 between 11.00am and 3.00pm, and thereafter by calling Katie Giles on 020 8417 7054 or emailing archives@kingston.ac.uk to arrange a visit.

  

Summer Craft

  

Pressing Flowers

Pressed flowers

Preserve your favourite flowers by pressing them. Then use them to create your own hand made gifts. such as book marks and greeting cards. They can also be framed, put into scrapbooks or used for decoration.
 

 

You Will Need
 

·  Fresh flowers
·  Plain paper
·  Heavy books

How to press your flowers
 

1. For best result make sure you pick your flowers at their freshest and press when there is no moisture on them.

 

2. Place the flowers between a sheet of folded paper as shown above to protect the pages of your book.

 

Place the flowers between a sheet of folded paper to protect the pages of your book

 

3. Before pressing your flowers, decide how you would like them look after you have pressed them. Avoid allowing parts to overlap unless for artistic effect. Leaves should normally be laid out flat.

 

4. If you plan to press large batches of flowers, make sure you leave sufficient space between each of your pressings. Then weigh down with a few heavy books on top. And leave for a few weeks.

 

4. If you are looking for faster results, flowers can also be pressed in the microwave (but make sure you use old books - perhaps from a charity shop). Put the book with the flowers and paper in a microwave and zap in short bursts (30 seconds at a time) checking between each burst to see if they are done. Repeat until almost done, and then put in another book to finish.

 

Use your pressed flowers to make greeting cards and book marks

* Handy tip - use your pressed flowers to make greeting cards and book marks. You can also frame them or stick them in scrapbooks. It's also a great hobby to enjoy with your grandchildren.

 

Dress up your table

  

Sugar Pink and Chocolate Butterfly Tree Centrepiece


Sugar Pink and Chocolate Butterfly Tree Centrepiece


Make this pretty Pink and Chocolate Butterfly Tree centrepiece to brighten up your table or window sill. This project is created by HobbyCraft

 

You Will Need
 

·  Natural ting ting
·  White spray paint
·  White and pink glitter butterflies
·  Brown organza stick-on bows
·  Brown organza ribbon
·  Clear acrylic vase

·  Glass nuggets
·  Coloured sand
·  Glue

How to make the Centrepiece
 

1. Spray the natural ting ting white and trim to the desired length.

 

2. Using brown organza ribbon, tie the ting ting together and make a large bow.

 

3. Decorate with stick-on bows and butterflies, using strong glue to hold in place.

 

4. Place the ting ting tree in a vase with glass nuggets and coloured sand to hold in place.

 

* Handy tip - if you don't have ting ting use any dried flower stems or plants.

 

For more information about HobbyCraft projects to make visit the website at www.hobbycraft.co.uk

 

Is it Ever too Late to Enter the Writing Game?

By Elizabeth Bailey, Romantic
Novelists' Association

 

Is it Ever too Late to Enter the Writing Game?

 

Everyone has a book in them, but a published book is something else.  It takes perseverance to get a novel accepted at any time, let alone later in life.  But as members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association can testify, it can be done.

 

Bernardine Kennedy (Shattered Lives - Headline) had her first novel picked up by an agent within two weeks of completion, going from conception to publication in a year.  She was 53.

 

Shattered Lives by Bernadine Kennedy

 

At 62, Stella Sykes sold her first novel Felicity Fights Back to Transita; Fenella Miller achieved her dream at 60, and at 65 has 15 books in print.  Elizabeth Berk’s debut Regency was shortlisted for the Association’s 2009 Romance Prize, and she, like half a dozen others, is in her sixties.

 

How is it done?  Motivation and persistence are key.  You have to want it badly.  Both Anita Burgh and Jennie Bohnet were driven to write because they needed money.  Others feel it as a hunger inside.  But all have in common a hard-headed determination to succeed at all costs.

 

“Write about what you know” is a cliché that works.  Jan Minshull wrote Coast to Coast while her husband was fighting cancer, her emotional journey fuelling the tale of a woman at a turning point in her life.  Susie Vereker’s Pond Lane and Paris plumbed her years as a diplomatic wife.  Working class girl Anita Burgh married an aristocrat, and Distinctions of Class drew heavily on her own story.

 

But there is one piece of advice every single writer must take, or perish at the first hurdle.  If you want to be published, you have to write!  However bad you think it is, get it down.  You can polish a written text.  If you haven’t written it, you’ve got nothing.

 

It’s no good saying you will do it when you have time.  You have to make time.  The advantage of doing it in later life is to have more choices about time.

 

Bestseller Anna Jacobs, who has had 45 novels published since her debut at 50, writes every single day, including Christmas!  Few writers have her dedication, but most agree it works to set yourself a daily target and stick to it.

 

Anna Jacobs
Author, Anna Jacobs

 

200 words or 2000, one hour or five, it doesn’t matter.  The important thing is to sit down at the specified time and start.

 

It’s surprising how soon you get into the rhythm of writing, and doing it daily over a few consecutive days means you can keep the threads of the plot in your head.  If your writing sessions are infrequent, you’ll spend most of your allotted time rereading what you wrote to get back into the flow.

 

Then you keep going, week after week, until your novel is complete.  Now you have something to work at and polish.  And that’s when to think about finding an agent and publisher.

 

Age has nothing to do with it.  Many romantic novelists have done it.  So can you.

 

For more information about the Romantic Novelists' Association click on www.rna-uk.org

 

       Summer Baking Idea

 

Raspberry Cupcakes

 

Raspberry Cupcakes

 

When you are entertaining outside, make sure you don’t forget the dessert! After a big barbeque a light and fruity dessert is always welcome, and these delicious Raspberry Cupcakes are perfect. Raspberry cupcakes are ideal for little ones to make too, and look great stacked on a cake stand in pretty pink cupcake cases.

 

Ingredients for the cupcakes
 

·  125g butter

·  125g  Squires  Kitchen  Raspberry  Real  Fruit
Fondant Instant Mix Icing

·  2 eggs

·  125g self-raising flour

 

Ingredients for the butter icing

·  60g butter

·  125g  Squires  Kitchen  Raspberry  Real  Fruit Fondant Instant Mix Icing

· 2 tsp hot water

 

How to make the cupcakes

 

Raspberry Cupcakes

 

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
 

2. To make the cupcakes, cream the SK Raspberry Real Fruit Fondant Instant Mix Icing with the 125g butter until light and fluffy in a mixer or by hand.
 

3. Add the eggs one at a time until all combined.
 

4. Remove from the mixer if necessary and fold in the flour.
 

5. Line a cupcake tin with the cases and half fill them with the cake mixture.
 

6. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.

 

7. To make the icing, cream the SK Raspberry Real Fruit Fondant Instant Mix Icing with the 60g butter and the hot water. Pipe or spoon on top of the cooled cupcakes.

 

You can use any of the Real Fruit Fondant Instant Mix Icing flavours instead of Raspberry if you wish - choose from Strawberry, Orange, Blackcurrant and Lemon and co-ordinate with coloured cupcake cases from Squires Kitchen. You can decorate the cupcakes with many different things, including chocolate shavings and fresh fruit.

 

Find everything you will need for this recipe at www.squires-shop.com

 

This recipe is from Mark Tilling, the UK Chocolate Master 2006 - 2009 who has joined Squires Kitchen as master chocolatier and tutor.

 

Mark will be creating amazing chocolates in Squires Kitchen’s brand new, specially designed chocolate studio and will be involved in product development and the design of SK’s innovative chocolate products.

 

If you would like to find out the secrets of making great chocolates and how to use this delicious medium to make stunning cakes and desserts, then join Mark on a course to learn how it is done.

 

Courses will be available for everyone from beginners to professional pastry chefs wanting to learn how to create stunning showpieces. Mark will teach you how to make chocolates, how to use transfer sheets and how to garnish chocolate desserts. He will show you how to use moulds and will even tell you about the history of chocolate from bean to bar.

 

Mark’s teaching style is relaxed and fun, and you will go home with the knowledge and skills to make your own fantastic creations.

 

To find out more about Mark’s courses, please call Squires Kitchen’s course coordinator on 0845 22 55 671/2.

 

Children's Cakes and Party Ideas

 

If you like this recipe, then you will love Children’s Cakes & Party Ideas. Children’s Cakes & Party Ideas is an inspirational bookazine full of brilliant ideas for celebration cakes and other party food that you can easily make at home. Children's Cakes and Party Ideas includes recipes, cake projects, themed party menus, tips from the experts and many other innovative ideas for making a party extra special.

 

Children’s Cakes & Party Ideas is on sale in WHSmith and www.squires-shop.com now.

 

If  you  enjoy  cake  decorating  and  sugarcraft then  sign up  for  the  original Squires Kitchen E-newsletter! It’s easy and FREE to receive a monthly newsletter packed with special offers, new products, courses, events, hints and tips, features, news, and more.

 

Don't miss out – subscribe now! Simply visit www.squires-group.co.uk and go to the Newsletter page to sign up.

 

Be inspired with Squires Kitchen!
 

Whatever the celebration, be Inspired by Food! Inspired by Food is the ultimate reference guide, offering a whole host of innovative ideas, edibles and equipment to make yours a truly stunning celebration. Inspired by Food complements squires-shop.com and Issue 5 is on sale in WHSmith and www.squires-shop.com now.

 

Learn a new skill!
 

If you would like to learn more, then come and join our friendly courses held in the beautiful Georgian town of Farnham, Surrey. We cater for all skill levels.

 

To find out more, visit www.squiresschool.co.uk or call 0845 22 55 671/2.

 

www.squires-shop.com is an inspirational source for anyone who loves to be creative in the kitchen.

 

Visit squires-shop.com today and make your food look fabulous!